A planner can’t build an entire city (or neighborhood even) because she can’t begin to design and construct the necessary diversity and social intricacy that happens spontaneously in a living city. And I don’t think she should even try to because it can irreparably damage, even kill, the living flesh of a city. What can government do? In the ordinary course of its activities a government can perhaps at best refrain from doing the things that would thwart the emergence of the invisible social infrastructure that gives rise to that diversity, development, and genuine liveliness.

Piketty examines pretax, pretransfer incomes over the past several decades, a time during which the US has massively expanded its transfer programs. Indeed, transfers have increased relative to GDP more than the income share of the top, so ignoring them has a significant impact on the results. When assessing incomes in the US on a post-tax, post-transfer basis, income inequality is much less severe than the levels identified by Piketty. When assessing inequality on the basis of consumption, it is even less pronounced. However, Piketty does not examine consumption inequality.